Dreams of Land Collide as Israeli Settlers Grow in Numbers

By TIM GOLDEN

Published: July 3, 2002

GIVAT ESHKODESH, West Bank—
There is no discernible charm to this barren hilltop, but the young, Israeli settlers who have occupied it say they will do whatever they must to defend it.

''If you have faith, there is no force that can move you,'' one 24-year-old settler, Shalom Israeli, said, smiling as he clutched the grip of his M-16 assault rifle on a recent day. ''This is just one hill, but it points straight up to God.''

Palestinians in the village of Singil can see the outpost from their terraces. To them, it makes no difference that such settlements are not officially sanctioned by the Israeli government. Their land is disappearing, the villagers say, and only the settlers have the army on their side.

''The Jews here believe they have been chosen by God and that we are animals,'' said Khaled Hussein, 35, a stonecutter in Singil. ''They are coming closer all the time. Now, I think, there are only two possibilities: either Israel will destroy us, or we will destroy Israel.''

Settlements like Givat Eshkodesh are at the epicenter of the consuming rage in the Middle East, as two dreams of land collide with renewed intensity in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

[On July 1, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced the dismantling of 11 small settler outposts, all but 2 of which were uninhabited. Defense officials said 9 more of the illegal outposts, which they would not name, would be removed in the coming weeks.]

But despite repeated Israeli pledges to halt their expansion, the occasional evacuation of outposts and sporadic appeals from the United States, the settlements have grown steadily. Although the number of recognized settlements has remained fairly stable in recent years, their population in the West Bank has about doubled over the last decade, rising from 100,500 in 1992 to an estimated 198,000 last year, according to official figures.

Behind the growth, officials and analysts said, lies an elaborate system of government incentives and a powerful network of political support. The government provides the settlers with cheap land, discounted loans, tax breaks and other aid. The settlers, in turn, have become a potent constituency of the right-wing political parties that support them -- a force powerful enough to command the actions of important ministers or to destabilize government coalitions.

Israeli policy has largely been shaped by the most militant settlers, Jews who occupy land they believed was deeded to them in the Bible. But as the incentive system has evolved, officials said, it has steadily lured more and more secular families looking for affordable suburban homes.

Asaf Mani, a 27-year-old computer programmer, said it was an easy choice for him and his young wife, Almog, to leave behind a cramped Tel Aviv apartment and join some of her family in the isolated West Bank settlement of Homesh.

Their new hilltop home, with views that stretch for miles, cost only about $60,000 before renovations. The government gave them a cut-rate mortgage, and they will receive a 7 percent break on their income tax. Schools, public transportation and community activities are all heavily subsidized.

''I am a dreamer,'' Mr. Mani said, looking past the army bunker in his front yard to the distant haze of the Mediterranean. ''I can already see the chicken and the sheep over there, the little steps down to the road. A little time. A little money. It will come.''

An Obstacle to Peace Talks

How much Israel spends to sustain and defend the settlements remains a closely held secret. Estimates run upward of $1 billion a year, including security costs, even as the country struggles with its most severe economic crisis in decades.

A former finance minister, Avraham Shochat, calculated the cost of the government's incentive system at perhaps $400 million. Based on supplemental defense appropriations since the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, began in September 2000, he estimated that the security forces are also spending more than $1 billion in additional funds each year, part of it to protect the settlements.

As the United States seeks to revive the peace negotiations and help formulate boundaries for an eventual Palestinian state, American officials say that Israel's settlement machine stands as one of their most formidable obstacles. The sharp rise of the settler population over the last decade has come despite Israel's vow, under the Oslo peace negotiations, not to ''change the status'' of the occupied territories pending final negotiations.

[In his speech on the Middle East on June 24, President Bush echoed the familiar American appeal, saying, ''Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop.'']

Israeli governments have pledged repeatedly to stop building new settlements, insisting that any expansion of those in place (now about 125 in the West Bank and 10 more in the Gaza Strip) would be limited to the ''natural growth'' of the population. But while the West Bank settlement population grew at an annual rate of about 8 percent over the last decade, the birth rate alone would have caused an annual increase of only 3.1 percent, analysts said.